James Barrie - When a Man's Single - A Tale of Literary Life

'Oh, wait a bit,' said Will, 'I remember something about it now. Mary saw something in a Silchester paper, the Mirror , I think, that made her cry, and she thinks that if you saw it you would cry too. So she wants you to look at it.'

'The idea of Mary's crying!' said Nell indignantly. 'But did she not give you a note?'

'She was too much upset,' said Will, signing to the captain not to let on that they had refused to wait for the note.

'I wonder what it can be?' murmured Nell.

She hurried from the room to her father's den, and found him there surrounded by newspapers.

'Is there anything in the Mirror , father?' she asked.

'Nothing,' said Mr. Meredith, who had made the same answer to this question many hundreds of times; 'nothing except depression in the boot trade.'

'It can't be that,' said Nell.

'Can't be what?'

'Oh, give me the paper,' cried the ex-mayor's daughter impatiently.

She looked hastily up and down it, with an involuntary glance at the births, deaths, and marriages, turned it inside out and outside in, and then exclaimed 'Oh!' Mr. Meredith, who was too much accustomed to his daughter's impulses to think that there was much wrong, listened patiently while she ejaculated, 'Horrid!' 'What a shame!' 'Oh, I wish I was a man!' and, 'Well, I can't understand it.' When she tossed the paper to the floor, her face was red and her body trembled with excitement.

'What is it, Nelly?' asked her father.

Whether Miss Abinger cried over the Mirror that day is not to be known, but there were indignant tears in Nell's eyes as she ran upstairs to her bedroom. Mr. Meredith took up the paper and examined it carefully at the place where his daughter had torn it in her anger. What troubled her seemed to be something in the book notices, and he concluded that it must be a cruel 'slating' of a novel in one volume called The Scorn of Scorns . Mr. Meredith remembered that Nell had compelled him to read that book and to say that he liked it.

'That's all,' he said to himself, much relieved.

He fancied that Nell, being a girl, was distressed to see a book she liked called 'the sentimental out-pourings of some silly girl who ought to confine her writing to copy-books.' In a woman so much excitement over nothing seemed quite a natural thing to Mr. Meredith. The sex had ceased to surprise him. Having retired from business, Mr. Meredith now did things slowly as a good way of passing the time. He had risen to wealth from penury, and counted time by his dining-room chairs, having passed through a cane, a horsehair, and a leather period before arriving at morocco. Mrs. Meredith counted time by the death of her only son.

It may be presumed that Nell would not have locked herself into her bedroom and cried and stamped her feet on an imaginary critic had The Scorn of Scorns not interested her more than her father thought. She sat down to write a note to Mary. Then she tore it up, and wrote a letter to Mary's elder brother, beginning with the envelope. She tore this up also, as another idea came into her head. She nodded several times to herself over this idea, as a sign that the more she thought of it the more she liked it. Then, after very nearly forgetting to touch her eyes with something that made them look less red, she returned to the drawing-room.

'Will,' she said, 'have you seen the new ponies papa gave me on my birthday?'

Will leapt to his feet.

'Come on, Greybrooke,' he cried, making for the door.

The captain hesitated.

'Perhaps,' said Nell, with a glance at him, 'Mr. Greybrooke does not have much interest in horses?'

'Doesn't he just!' said Will; 'why – '

'No,' said Greybrooke; 'but I'll wait here for you, Abinger.'

Will was staggered. For a moment the horrible thought passed through his mind that these girls had got hold of the captain. Then he remembered.

'Come on,' he said, 'Nell won't mind.'

But Greybrooke had a delicious notion that the young lady wanted to see him by himself, and Will had to go to the stables alone.

'I won't be long,' he said to Greybrooke, apologising for leaving him alone with a girl. 'Don't bother him too much,' he whispered to Nell at the door.

As soon as Will had disappeared Nell turned to Greybrooke.

'Mr. Greybrooke,' she said, speaking rapidly in a voice so low that it was a compliment to him in itself, 'there is something I should like you to do for me.'

The captain flushed with pleasure.

'There is nothing I wouldn't do for you,' he stammered.

'I want you,' continued Miss Meredith, with a most vindictive look on her face, 'to find out for me who wrote a book review in to-day's Mirror , and to – to – oh, to thrash him.'

'All right,' said the captain, rising and looking for his hat.

'Wait a minute,' said Nell, glancing at him admiringly. 'The book is called The Scorn of Scorns , and it is written by – by a friend of mine. In to-day's Mirror it is called the most horrid names, sickly sentimental, not even grammatical, and all that.'

'The cads!' cried Greybrooke.

'But the horribly mean, wicked thing about it,' continued Nell, becoming more and more indignant as she told her story, 'is that not two months ago there was a review of the book in the same paper, which said it was the most pathetic and thoughtful and clever tale that had ever been published by an anonymous author!'

'It's the lowest thing I ever heard of,' said Greybrooke, 'but these newspaper men are all the same.'

'No, they're not,' said Nell sharply (Richard Abinger, Esq.'s, only visible means of sustenance was the press), 'but they are dreadfully mean, contemptible creatures on the Mirror – just reporters, you know.'

Greybrooke nodded, though he knew nothing about it.

'The first review,' Nell continued, 'appeared on the 3rd of October, and I want you to show them both to the editor, and insist upon knowing the name of the writer. After that find the wretch out, and – '

'And lick him,' said the captain.

His face frightened Nell.

'You won't hit him very hard?' she asked apprehensively, adding as an afterthought, 'perhaps he is stronger than you.'

Greybrooke felt himself in an unfortunate position. He could not boast before Nell, but he wished very keenly that Will was there to boast for him. Most of us have experienced the sensation.

Nell having undertaken to keep Will employed until the captain's return, Greybrooke set off for the Mirror office with a look of determination on his face. He went into two shops, the one a news-shop, where he bought a copy of the paper. In the other he asked for a thick stick, having remembered that the elegant cane he carried was better fitted for swinging in the air than for breaking a newspaper man's head. He tried the stick on a paling. Greybrooke felt certain that Miss Meredith was the novelist. That was why he selected so thick a weapon.

He marched into the advertising office, and demanded to see the editor of the Mirror .

''Stairs,' said a clerk, with his head in a ledger. He meant upstairs, and the squire of dames took his advice. After wandering for some time in a labyrinth of dark passages, he opened the door of the day composing-room, in which half a dozen silent figures were bending over their cases.

'I want the editor,' said Greybrooke, somewhat startled by the sound his voice made in the great room.

''Stairs,' said one of the figures, meaning downstairs.

Greybrooke, remembering who had sent him here, did not lose heart. He knocked at several doors, and then pushed them open. All the rooms were empty. Then he heard a voice saying —

'Who are you? What do you want?'

Mr. Licquorish was the speaker, and he had been peering at the intruder for some time through a grating in his door. He would not have spoken at all, but he wanted to go into the composing-room, and Greybrooke was in the passage that led to it.